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MY WORLD

Some Sidelights from the Conversation with Yunus

S. M. Ali
ONVERSAT1ON with Mohammad
f ' Yunus' which we arc pleased to publish as the lead piece tn this week s magazine section is a feature wc have been planning to put together for a long time. This delay, caused by one reason or another, had started making me feel guilty of paying less than adequate attention, through this newspaper, to our own success stories, however few they may be, like Grameen Bank and BRAC. I had mentioned this lapse of the media in Bangladesh at a seminar months ago, without realising that The Daily Star too could certainly do better in this field. Come to think of It, this paper could do better in all different areas which form parts of dally journalism.
Indeed, it was an article on the Grameen Bank I had read in Die International Herald Tribune tn the mld-etghtles, not tn any Dhaka newspaper, that first helped the to appreciate the tremendous contribution made by this institution to promoting self employment among the rural poor in Bangladesh through an innovative credit system. The writer of the piece was Jonathan Power who has done some immensely readable features on seemingly dull development issues tn the Third World. Through years of experience and hard work. Power has mastered the technique of identifying a success story in the midst of an impoverished setting of a developing country and then writing about it in human terms. So, the piece about the Grameen Bank contained all the basic facts and statistics about this institution. But It also had the human angle, an Insight into the personalities of people involved, such as the rural women whose Ilves had changed through the help they received from the bank, in the form of collateral free loans, a couple of young executives who had given up lucrative jobs abroad to work on this project and. of course, Dr Yunus, the founder and Managing Director of the organisation. A few days later, another artlck- by Power on the bank appeared in The New Straits Times. the leading English-language dally of Kuala Lumpur where I was then working for an international organisation at the last stage of my 25-year stay in Southeast Asia
There is. indeed. no denying the fact that the press in the West and in Southeast Asia has published a great deal more on the Grameen Bank than our own newspapers. Whether Yunus
takes this indifference of our media to his outstanding work for the rural poor in hts stride or feels a little hurt. 1 would not know. That's one question wc forgot to put to the professor turned-banker — Is that a right expression? I wonder — during our two-hour long conversation. If we had brought up the subject, Yunus might have attributed the local media s poor coverage of the Grameen Bank to Its lack of interest tn grass root development as such, be yond reporting the usual rhetorical statements of our political personalities. On this Issue, as on a few others, he would have got my agreement to a large measure.
Another area of disappointment, almost bordering on frustration, for Yunus relates to the attitude of major political parties and of their top leaders towards the work of the Grameen Bank, an attitude that is partly ambivalent and partly Indifferent. At one stage, he
must have wondered why our national leaders - have shown so little interest tn finding out all there is to know about this unique rural credit institution, when many foreign personalities, at different levels, like US President-elect Bill Clinton, Malaysian Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim and UNICEIj' Chief Jim Grant, have spent hours with thii Bangladeshi expert on the work he has done for the rural poor in his countiy.
Why I9 this so? Maybe our policy-makers, both of the ruling party or the opposition, are never particularly comfortable with Innovative projects, especially when they originate outside their own conventional frame of references, set up by people who are just too independent to belong to any political organisation. This explains why a government leader finds it easier and politically more advantageous to write off an outstanding agricultural loan than to find out why the Krishi Bank has so much
difficulty in collecting its bad debts when an other organisation in the same field, like the Grameen Bank, maintains 9H per cent ratio in recovering its outstanding loans.
OUR long conversation with Moham mad Yunus was bound to reveal some differences between the team of The DaBy Star and the Chief of the Grameen Bank on a few broad issues relating to the development process tn Bangladesh or, for that matter, tn any Third World country.
it was stimulating, almost Inspiring, to lis ten to Yunus on the battles he has fought -and won — In helping the poorest of the poor, through his unique rural credit organisation. In the process, he has developed a stralghlfor ward down-to-earth approach that is free of academic jargon and political slogans What’s
more, the approach has worked, even beyond the expectations of the most ardent supporters of the bank.
I, for one, feel perfectly comfortable with this approach.
However, I was a little puzzled when Yunus asserted that none of the projects carried out in Bangladesh during the past two decades had made any difference to the lives of the common people — or the poorest of the poor — and that he did not think much of what one might loosely describe a»zthe expansion of infrastructure. like bridges, roads and power, even in rural Bangladesh. I felt that he put all the emphasis on providing financial assistance, in the form of credits end loans, which in some cases, was now backed by technical support, to the poorest of the poor.
1 also had the impression that Yunus did not see all the various linkages which existed within a successful development process, say,
between raising the productivity of the econ <>my. the development of Infrastructure, a col lateral-free credit system for the poorest of the poor, among others.
Again, quoting from a study by two of our noted experts. Rehman Sobhan and Hashim. Yunus suggested that 70 per cent of all foreign assistance pumped into this country since liberation has gone back to the donors tn one form or another, without producing much benefit for Bangladesh, with the remaining 30 per cent eaten up by local consultants and an unproductive administration. The latter probably Included kickbacks and pay-offs to handful of corrupt officials and middlemen. In short, it is a story of total fifilure
On the face of it, 1 do find it all rather simplistic. Howcvef. I am prepared give It a close attention on the basis of. say. 20 case studies of projects undertaken and implemented in liangladcsh during the past two decade*, with external assistance.
When any research organisation la ready to undertake the proposed study, we will select the project* at random. However, they should Include some of my own favourite ones, such as. UNICEFs immunisation programme and its project for supply of drinking water in remote rural areas: a whole range of programmes of BRAC. especially In the field of adult literacy; the Grameen Bank and several of Its new projects, including the housing programme; the rural electrification project: and the Friendship Bridge built over Buriganga with Chinese assistance.
The study may not be complete unless we have talked on the subject with some of our experts who, at one time or another, worked in or even directed the Planning Commission or the Ministry of Finance, since the liberation in 1971 They would Include Prof Rehman Sobhan. Dr Mosharraf Hussain, Fasiuddin Mahlab. M K Anwar, Saifur Rahman. AMA Muhith, Syeduzzaman. Kaftluddin Mahmood and Kazi Fazlur Rahman. Luckily for me. quite a few of these distinguished experts contribute to this paper Others arc certainly within our
It will be interesting, even illuminating, to see the outcome of this proposed project. Who knows it may even support the position taken by Moh.unmad Yunus.
As the saying goes. you never can tell.